John Abra­ham be­lieves au­di­ences should ‘con­sume’ him in cinemas, draw­ing a par­al­lel with The Rock

Ac­tor John Abra­ham has had a smash­ing year with two hits (Par­manu, Satyameva Jay­ate). While both of th­ese were big­bud­get ac­tion-packed films, John has also worked in other gen­res, in­clud­ing movies that might be called ‘indie cin­ema’ such as Wa­ter (2005), and in rol­lick­ing come­dies such as Garam Masala (2005) and House­full 2 (2012).

Given the range of his choices, the ac­tor must be a movie buff him­self, we ask. He replies, “I don’t watch a lot of films in the the­atre. In terms of per­son­al­ity, I find Shah Rukh Khan re­ally amaz­ing, and I also love watch­ing Aamir Khan. I do like the big screen ex­pe­ri­ence, but I don’t get the time to watch.”

While he can’t make much time for big screen view­ing, John be­lieves that with the kind of per­son­al­ity he him­self has, au­di­ences should “con­sume” him on the big screen. “I be­lieve I’m a large­screen hero, and if you need to con­sume John Abra­ham, you need to con­sume him on the big screen. If I had to draw a Hollywood ex­am­ple, it would be Dwayne John­son (aka The Rock, star of films such as San An­dreas, 2015, and this year’s Sky­scraper). You don’t want to watch the man on the small screen; he’s a big-screen hero. In my head, prob­a­bly at this point of time, I’m made for the big screen,” says John.

Does he watch his old films now and re­flect on whether some were bad choices? “I try and see the good in those films, and won­der why [I did] those films or why some­one would want me to work in them... I can men­tion the ones worth watch­ing, rather than the ones that are not,” says the ac­tor, whose next film is Batla House.

If I had to draw a Hollywood ex­am­ple, it would be Dwayne John­son. You don’t want to watch the man on the small screen; he’s a big­screen hero. JOHN ABRA­HAM AC­TOR

PHOTO: YOGEN SHAH

John Abra­ham has had two big hits in 2018, and is now shooting for Batla House